French President Emmanuel Macron said it was too early to attribute the wave of bomb threats that has spread across Europe in recent days to foreign powers. He made the statement in Dublin during the meeting of the European Political Community.
“It is still too early to say,” Macron replied when asked whether a foreign state, including Russia, was behind the threats. According to him, the available information is not sufficient to draw such a conclusion.
The president announced that in the coming days he would convene the French defense and security council. The meeting is expected to discuss the series of alerts affecting civil aviation, educational institutions and media outlets in various European countries.
Flights were diverted and planes escorted
On November 5, more than a dozen flights in Europe received bomb threats. As a result, some planes were diverted to other airports, while military fighter jets were dispatched along certain routes. In one case, a flight from Dublin to Rome was directed to a French air base in Normandy. No explosive device was found during the inspection.
The threats caused disruptions to air transport and heightened concerns that the individual incidents could be part of a broader destabilization campaign. However, European Transport Commissioner Apostolos Tzitzikostas said it was too early to draw conclusions about whether the incidents were connected.
Thousands of schools received false alerts
On November 11, nearly 6,300 of around 7,900 Italian school complexes received emails warning of bombs. Alerts were also reported against schools in Ireland, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Evacuations took place in some locations, but no perpetrator has been publicly identified.
In Ireland, threats were also received against media outlets in the days before the meeting in Dublin, attended by around 50 European leaders. Irish authorities warned that similar alerts could continue during the large-scale security operation surrounding the meeting.
The French prosecutor’s office is already investigating a possible link between the threats against aircraft and foreign powers. This is an avenue being examined, not an established fact. So far, neither French nor European authorities have publicly identified who is behind the wave of false bomb alerts.
Sources: apnews.com, euronews.com, tf1info.fr